Hide Behind Me is a medium difficulty challenge on the MizaMaze map. Scavengers are disabled, and you start with simple bases and medium power level. In addition, you get two AI allies to hide behind.

You play against 5 medium difficulty AIs on this map. This means the map will be crowded. The key to a quick victory may be how well you manage to utilize your AI allies. You can request help from the by typing "help me", and tell them you are ok by typing "i'm ok".

Post your play-through experiences, best time and comments below.

Note that there is a slight bug in this challenge as of 2.3 beta6, as your AI allies should have started right next to you. Instead they start off in the corners. Fixed from 2.3 beta7 and later.

Your starting base in the upper left corner. The other players shown are your AI allies.

My idea at first was to rush the AI on the left, fortify my flank, take as much oil as quickly as possible. I used MRArty on hovers to destroy bases, and retreat for repair.I also slowed down the game to 0,3 ^^, so I could manage 6 teams of trucks at once. It was kinda hard , My ripples and mortars helped AI to stand against enemies.

Also, when I typed 'help me', usually I'd get 'bug off' message, or 'I don't have anything'. I dropped a beacon of course (otherwise it says 'drop a beacon')

Maybe I'm not that good player, but it took some serious planning to beat. Also, if you save the game during challenge, and load it, the timer will be off. (I totally forgot to report that)

I have no idea The timer disappeared, because I saved game 1 or 2 times, and on slowed down game its the only way to tell. I took about 1-1,5h of playing (reeeeeally slow playing )I tried the 'fixed' challenge, on beta 7, and it's much easier, I'll try 'record breaking' soon

Slowing the game down is invaluable, especially in key battles and early in the game. Save the game often!Keep up with the enemy in research. Keep your allies alive.

More specific info on how I did it:

Rushed the pink base in the lower left corner with my two starting trucks, built (a lot) of machine gun towers in there and once they were finished off, fortified the base with first heavy MG and Mini-pod rockets, then Lancers and morters and eventually Tank killer, scourge.

Fortified the grey ally base against attack from black. Mini-Pod towers again with HeavyMG hardpoints upgrading to lancers and morters and then to scourge.

Took the centre 4 oils on the ground (plus the one on the hill closest to the base) and fortified the centre in the same manner.

Spent as little as possible on defence and as much as possible on research. All research went into faster research (to get the better power generators) and rockets with a little bit on morters (AI seemed keen to research cannons though).

Once I was fortified in well, I just research howitzer - Ground shaker, built a bunch of them and killed the bases with them. Once black fall (or cyan), the game is won, as you already too out pink and then it's just 3 v 3. I had to save the game often (sometimes you will mess up and have your defences broken somewhere you forget to upgrade). I found if you lose one ally it's game over...

Playing now against AIvolution. Seems a bit harder (they build heavy cannon tanks with tigers very soon)! Same tactic seems to be working though. Have scourge defences under construction with bombard and incendary morters backing them up (for cyborgs) and they are looking unbreakable against the needle guns/cannons and scourge tanks and cyborgs attacking them.

- Great challenge!

edit: Beat aivolution in that same game - Took 2 hours 30 mins (game timer never loads when you re-load a save, but it does give a mission time at the end when you win).

Has anyone actually completed this on v 2.3??? (Not sure what the default AI is)

I've tried several times and found:

1. It's pretty easy to take 1 enemy out.2. This is sometimes at the cost of losing an ally.3. And/or the enemy base becomes progressively impossible to hold.4. Resources become impossible to hold and allies literally just waste everything. Almost tempted to try and take them out and take their oils.5. No, AI does NOT help when you call for them.6. OMFG INFERNOS ARE SO OVERPOWERED. Literally wtf! 2 of them ran through my shoddy defences (after spending all energies on taking 1 enemy). They are super effective against almost everything. I gave up my latest attempt because 7 of them were just raping everything I had, and I could do nothing to them. Even the v1.1 lancers weren't THIS overpowered. Please fix this. 7. Spent sooooooooooooooooo much energy on rocket/lancer research, and they're still USELESS compared to those flamers. Range barely makes any difference, and lancers seem to be only """effective""" against tanks. Even then, a cobra inferno could EASILY take out 2 cobra lancers. wtf is this?!?? You can't make inferno comparable to tank killer / pulse laser just because it's 2nd stage!!! flamers are one of the first things going... this is just ridiculous.

Inferno/flamers are not over powered they have short range you simply out run them and DON'T WALK INTO THEM. I suggest you play some MP if you haven't already against some good players to maybe get a better understanding of how "good" you are.

And it depends on the propulsion the Infernos were on.But well, HMGs or Assault guns should have blasted them pretty easy - but - keep the distance.

I did the challenge on some beta version, using cheats to slow game down - on 0,3 speed I sometimes still had to be fast .Maybe I'll try to replay that in near future, without cheats and see how it goes.

Daltx wrote:Inferno/flamers are not over powered they have short range you simply out run them and DON'T WALK INTO THEM. I suggest you play some MP if you haven't already against some good players to maybe get a better understanding of how "good" you are.

Range means nothing on this challenge. People are very close to each other, there are too many passages to cover. Comp will always have huge research advantage. When they come invading your base, what's the point of running away (into other units)?? When they blast straight through your WALLS and HARDPOINTS that other weapons (with the sole exception of bunker buster) don't seem to stand a chance against... how are they NOT overpowered?

I've only played a few online MPs (though played a lot with friends on v1.1 by LAN). The people I met were awful. I'd like to play against good people. But to be honest, it really isn't the same game as I'm used to anymore... So much has changed.

Michal wrote:And it depends on the propulsion the Infernos were on.But well, HMGs or Assault guns should have blasted them pretty easy - but - keep the distance.

I did the challenge on some beta version, using cheats to slow game down - on 0,3 speed I sometimes still had to be fast .Maybe I'll try to replay that in near future, without cheats and see how it goes.

By the time they had infernos (cobra tracks), I did not have assault guns (I could research it but then I wouldn't be able to produce them). VTOL lancers were constantly raiding my factories. Other random stuff popped up everywhere and my allies were just watching grass grow while the enemy took their bases. I tried to research intensely (stuff like lancer... but despite HUGE amounts of research time and energy, lancer HARDPOINTS get OWNED by INFERNOS. The same infernos kill my repairing trucks THROUGH THE WALL (OVERPOWERED MUCH?!?). No other weapon unless on a tower can do that. Absolutely ridiculous.

Also, EVEN if I had really good HMG or even AG, I would not have enough energy to produce enough to counter 14 infernos. 2 of which were sufficient to wipe out the base I took, fortified with MG bunkers and 4 HMG vipers and 2 cobra lancers (all I could afford).

These flamers clearly ARE overpowered for the amount of time etc. you spend on research. Bear in mind this challenge starts at T1. The game may be well-balanced on T3, but that doesn't mean the same applies for T1...

It's easier to verify with a longer-range penetrating weapon like Gauss Cannon.

icyflames wrote:By the time they had infernos (cobra tracks), I did not have assault guns (I could research it but then I wouldn't be able to produce them). VTOL lancers were constantly raiding my factories. Other random stuff popped up everywhere and my allies were just watching grass grow while the enemy took their bases. I tried to research intensely (stuff like lancer... but despite HUGE amounts of research time and energy, lancer HARDPOINTS get OWNED by INFERNOS. The same infernos kill my repairing trucks THROUGH THE WALL (OVERPOWERED MUCH?!?). No other weapon unless on a tower can do that. Absolutely ridiculous.

Also, EVEN if I had really good HMG or even AG, I would not have enough energy to produce enough to counter 14 infernos. 2 of which were sufficient to wipe out the base I took, fortified with MG bunkers and 4 HMG vipers and 2 cobra lancers (all I could afford).

These flamers clearly ARE overpowered for the amount of time etc. you spend on research. Bear in mind this challenge starts at T1. The game may be well-balanced on T3, but that doesn't mean the same applies for T1...

Lots of misconceptions here.

Flamers do 10% damage to hardpoints; the lowest damage multiplier of any weapon. If hardpoints are getting overpowered by infernos, something is clearly wrong. You sure you're not talking about incendiary mortars or plasma cannons or something?

Infernos are a higher techlevel than lancers, but even then, two lancers and four HMGs should be more than enough to kill two infernos before they got into range. That's not just "your microing is bad", that's "your microing is bad and your weapons were probably on Hold Fire".

I'm guessing you forgot to research weapon and armor upgrades, too. Those are important (but even with zero armor upgrades, infernos should not be a problem).

Edit: Nevermind, there appears to be a bug that makes infernos do way more damage than they're intended to do. Please hold while I sort this out.